Beer is one of the world’s oldest beverages dating back to 6000 BC. It’s been recorded in the written history of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. A Sumerian prayer to the goddess Ninkasi, known as “The Hymn to Ninkasi”, served as both a prayer as well as a method of remembering the recipe for beer. The earliest known chemical evidence of beer dates back to 3500–3100 BC from the site of Godin Tepe in the Zagros Mountains of western Iran.
Beer was spread through Europe by Germanic and Celtic tribes as far back as 3000 BC, though it was mainly brewed on a domestic scale. The Greeks taught the Romans to brew beer. The Romans called their brew cerevisia, from the Celtic word for it. Beer was very important to early Romans, but wine replaced beer as the preferred alcoholic beverage during the Roman Republic. Beer became a beverage considered fit only for barbarians.
The early European beers contained fruits, honey, numerous types of plants, spices and other substances such as narcotic drugs. Early beers did not contain hops. Hops were first mentioned in Europe around 822 by a Carolingian Abbot and again in 1067 by Abbess Hildegard of Bingen. Hopped beer was perfected in the towns of Germany by the 13th century and the longer lasting beer, combined with standardized barrel sizes, allowed for large-scale export. Laws to enforce the use of hops in beer were introduced in England in the 14th century and in other countries later on.
Beer produced before the Industrial Revolution continued to be made and sold on a domestic scale, although by the 7th century AD, beer was also being produced and sold by European monasteries. During the Industrial Revolution, the production of beer moved from artisanal manufacture to industrial manufacture, and domestic manufacture ceased to be significant by the end of the 19th century. The development of hydrometers and thermometers changed brewing by allowing the brewer more control of the process and greater knowledge of the results.
Today, the brewing industry is a global business, consisting of several dominant multinational companies and many thousands of smaller producers ranging from brewpubs to regional breweries.
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